This example searches April Stewart's mailbox for messages that contain the phrase "Your bank statement" in the subject and logs the result in the SearchAndDeleteLog folder in the administrator's mailbox. Messages aren't copied to the target mailbox.

This example searches April Stewart's mailbox for messages that contain the phrase "Your bank statement" in the subject and deletes the messages from the source mailbox. You have to be assigned the Mailbox Import Export management role to use the DeleteContent switch.

This example searches all mailboxes in your organization for messages that contain the words "election", "candidate", or "vote". The search results are copied to the Discovery Search Mailbox in the folder AllMailboxes-Election.

You can use the Search-Mailbox cmdlet to search messages in a specified mailbox and perform any of the following tasks:

Copy messages to a specified target mailbox.

Delete messages from the source mailbox. You have to be assigned the Mailbox Import Export management role to delete messages.

Copy messages from the source mailbox and delete them from the target mailbox.

Perform single item recovery to recover items from a user's Recoverable Items folder.

Clean up the Recoverable Items folder for a mailbox when it has reached the Recoverable Items hard quota.

You need to be assigned permissions before you can run this cmdlet. Although all parameters for this cmdlet are listed in this topic, you may not have access to some parameters if they're not included in the permissions assigned to you. To see what permissions you need, see the "In-Place eDiscovery" and "Delete mailbox content" entries in the Messaging policy and compliance permissions topic.

The EstimateResultOnly switch specifies that only an estimate of the total number and size of messages returned by the search be provided. Messages aren't copied to the target mailbox. You can't use this switch with the TargetMailbox parameter.

Identity

Required

Microsoft.Exchange.Configuration.Tasks.MailboxOrMailUserIdParameter

The Identity parameter specifies the identity of the mailbox to search.

This parameter accepts the following values:

Alias

Example: JPhillips

Canonical DN

Example: Atlanta.Corp.Contoso.Com/Users/JPhillips

Display Name

Example: Jeff Phillips

Distinguished Name (DN)

Example: CN=JPhillips,CN=Users,DC=Atlanta,DC=Corp,DC=contoso,DC=com

Domain\Account

Example: Atlanta\JPhillips

GUID

Example: fb456636-fe7d-4d58-9d15-5af57d0354c2

Immutable ID

Example: fb456636-fe7d-4d58-9d15-5af57d0354c2@contoso.com

Legacy Exchange DN

Example: /o=Contoso/ou=AdministrativeGroup/cn=Recipients/cn=JPhillips

SMTP Address

Example: Jeff.Phillips@contoso.com

User Principal Name

Example: JPhillips@contoso.com

TargetFolder

Required

System.String

The TargetFolder parameter specifies a folder name in which search results are saved in the target mailbox. The folder is created in the target mailbox upon execution.

TargetMailbox

Required

Microsoft.Exchange.Configuration.Tasks.MailboxIdParameter

The TargetMailbox parameter specifies the identity of the destination mailbox where search results are copied. You can use the following values:

Alias

Display name

Domain\Account

SMTP address

DN

Object GUID

UPN

LegacyExchangeDN

When you specify a value for the TargetMailbox parameter, you must also specify the TargetFolder parameter. You can't use this parameter with the EstimateResultOnly switch.

Confirm

Optional

System.Management.Automation.SwitchParameter

The Confirm switch causes the command to pause processing and requires you to acknowledge what the command will do before processing continues. You don't have to specify a value with the Confirm switch.

DeleteContent

Optional

System.Management.Automation.SwitchParameter

The DeleteContent switch specifies that the messages returned by the search be permanently deleted from the source mailbox. When used with the TargetMailbox parameter, messages are copied to the target mailbox and removed from the source mailbox. If you set the logging level for the search to Basic or Full, you must specify a target mailbox and a target folder to place the log in. To delete messages from the source mailbox without copying them to the target mailbox, don't specify the TargetMailbox, TargetFolder, and LogLevel parameters.

Important:

You need to be assigned the Mailbox Import Export management role to use this switch. By default, this role isn't assigned to any role group. Typically, you assign a role to a built-in or custom role group. Or you can assign a role to a user, or a universal security group.
Before you use the DeleteContent switch to delete content, we recommend that you test search parameters by using the LogOnly parameter, as shown in Example 2.

DomainController

Optional

Microsoft.Exchange.Data.Fqdn

This parameter is available only in on-premises Exchange 2013.

The DomainController parameter specifies the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the domain controller that writes this configuration change to Active Directory.

DoNotIncludeArchive

Optional

System.Management.Automation.SwitchParameter

The DoNotIncludeArchive switch specifies that the user's archive mailbox shouldn't be included in the search. You don't need to specify a value for this switch.

Force

Optional

System.Management.Automation.SwitchParameter

The Force switch overrides the confirmation prompt displayed when your use the DeleteContent switch to permanently delete messages.

IncludeUnsearchableItems

Optional

System.Management.Automation.SwitchParameter

The IncludeUnsearchableItems switch specifies whether to include items that couldn't be indexed by Exchange Search. When set to $true, the IncludeUnsearchableItems switch specifies that items that couldn't be indexed by Exchange Search should be included in the search results.

LogLevel

Optional

Microsoft.Exchange.Data.Storage.Infoworker.MailboxSearch.LoggingLevel

The LogLevel parameter specifies the logging level for the search. It can have one of the following values:

Suppress No logs are kept.

Basic Basic information about the query and who ran it is kept.

Full In addition to the information kept by the Basic log level, the Full log level adds a complete list of search results.

The default log level is Basic.

LogOnly

Optional

System.Management.Automation.SwitchParameter

The LogOnly switch specifies that a search be performed and only a log be generated. Messages returned by the search aren't copied to the target mailbox. The logging level is specified by using the LogLevel parameter.

SearchDumpster

Optional

System.Management.Automation.SwitchParameter

The SearchDumpster parameter specifies whether to search the Recoverable Items folder, which is the storage location in which items deleted from the Deleted Items folder or hard-deleted items are stored until they're purged from the mailbox database. By default, the Recoverable Items folder is always searched. To exclude the folder from the search, set the SearchDumpster switch to $false, for example,-SearchDumpster:$false

SearchDumpsterOnly

Optional

System.Management.Automation.SwitchParameter

The SearchDumpsterOnly switch specifies that only the Recoverable Items folder of the specified mailbox be searched. You can also use this switch with the DeleteContent switch to delete messages from the Recoverable Items folder and reduce the size of the folder.

The WhatIf switch instructs the command to simulate the actions that it would take on the object. By using the WhatIf switch, you can view what changes would occur without having to apply any of those changes. You don't have to specify a value with the WhatIf switch.